Posts tagged with "Guerilla Architecture":

New York’s Fearless Girl statue is likely to move to the New York Stock Exchange, according to a city representative knowledgeable about the pending relocation.

The bronze sculpture by Delaware artist Kristen Visbal has been a popular attraction since it first appeared in Manhattan’s Financial District on March 7, 2017.

Depicting a defiant girl with chin out and hands on her hips, the statute was placed in a public plaza, Bowling Green, at Broadway and Morris Street. It stands opposite a much larger sculpture installed in 1989, Charging Bull by Arturo Di Modica, as if daring the bull to run at her.

Fearless Girl was commissioned by State Street Global Advisors to highlight the company's initiative to bring more women onto corporate boards. The firm wanted it in place by March 8, International Women’s Day, which commemorates the movement for women’s rights.

The city initially allowed the statue to stay in place for several weeks under a temporary permit. Mayor Bill de Blasio later announced that it could stay at its current location until March 8, 2018.

With that deadline approaching, city officials said last month that the sculpture would remain on public view somewhere in the city, but not at Bowling Green, because the space isn’t large enough for the amount of traffic and number of visitors it draws.

Although numerous sites have been considered, the New York Stock Exchange at 11 Wall Street has emerged as the leading candidate, according to the city representative who is privy to the deliberations but not authorized to discuss the move. More details are expected before March 8.

“We are discussing various approaches to ensure this statue continues to be a part of the city’s civic life,” Natalie Grybauskas, a representative of the mayor’s office, said in a statement. “The message of the Fearless Girl statue has resonated with New Yorkers and visitors alike.”

The city is also considering plans to move the Charging Bull statue, either to keep it with Fearless Girl or to make it separate. The bull initially appeared in front of the Stock Exchange in 1989 and was later moved to Bowling Green.

Less than a year after financial firm State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) installed its Fearless Girlstatue opposite Arturo Di Modica’s classic Charging Bull in Manhattan’s Financial District, both sculptures may be relocated.
As first reported by Adweek, Fearless Girl, which was originally meant to be a month-long installation for International Women’s Day 2017, has proven so popular that the Mayor’s Office has begun negotiations with SSGA to make it a permanent fixture. The only problem? Fearless Girl is a victim of its own popularity, and throngs of tourists are making the patch of open space impossible to navigate through.
As a result, and because both sculptures have become intertwined, the city will either need to redesign the plaza for better accessibility, or move the pair to a more open location. While neither the Mayor’s Office, SSGA nor McCann New York, responsible for creating the statue, were willing to comment, it’s likely that the duo wouldn’t be moved very far.
The initial reactions to Fearless Girl weren’t entirely positive, as some viewed the installation as a cynical marketing ploy; the criticism only intensified when SSGA’s parent company State Street Corporation was fined $5 million for routinely underpaying female employees. Di Modica himself was shot down when he petitioned the city for Fearless Girl’s removal, although it should be noted that Charging Bull was originally dropped on the streets under the cover of darkness without permission. Bolstered by the good press, SSGA has reportedly looked into installing Fearless Girl copies in other interested cities, giving credence to opponents who claim that the statue is a free advertising ploy (the statue, which cost $250,000 to install, has generated over $7 million in investments for the company).
AN will follow up when we know exactly where the two statues will be moving to.

A New York City sculptor decided to take a literal piss on some art he didn't like.
Artist Alex Gardega's latest piece sends a golden shower down the leg of Fearless Girl, the bronze statue installed under the cover of darkness by a financial services company to generate free PR celebrate International Women's Day.
The statue faces down Arturo Di Modica's Charging Bull on Broadway in Lower Manhattan. Though the bronze sculpture attracted the ire and eye rolls of art historians, designers, and some feminists, the public seemed to love Fearless Girl. Even Mayor Bill de Blasio weighed in, granting it a temporary permit.
In response, Gardega dreamed up Pissing Pug, an intentionally "crappy" bronze likeness of a dog taking a whiz on the leg of Fearless Girl. The pug lurks below the knee of the Fearless Girl, its near hind leg arched to do the deed.
“I decided to build this dog and make it crappy to downgrade the statue, exactly how the girl is a downgrade on the bull,” Gardega told the New York Post.
There's no word yet on whether the statue will stay—though it is safe to say that the triangle in Bowling Green where the three pieces live is a micro-haven for guerrilla art. Back in 1989, Di Modica erected his sculpture in front of the New York Stock Exchange without permission from the city. Following public outcry after the city impounded the piece, the Park Department moved it to its current location where it has attracted throngs of testicle-rubbing tourists ever since.

Groundswell: Guerilla Architecture in Response to the Great East Japan Earthquake
MAK Center
835 North Kings Road
West Hollywood, California
Through January 4, 2015
The Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 devastated the island nation, setting off a tsunami that destroyed over 300 miles of coastline, causing the failure of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, and leaving more than 20,000 people dead and 470,000 without homes. The severe damage from the catastrophe propelled architects to take action, swiftly and creatively, as illustrated in a new exhibit, Groundswell: Guerilla Architecture in Response to the Great East Japan Earthquake.
Faced with the slow moving bureaucracy of the government response, a number of architects—including Manabu Chiba, Momoyo Kaijima and Yoshiharu Tsukamoto (of Atelier Bow-Wow), Senhiko Nakata, Osamu Tsukhashi, and Riken Yamamoto—decided to take matters into their own hands and work with local communities to rebuild, using a myriad of design solutions. Through this grassroots movement, the show explores how architects can jumpstart and participate in recovery efforts following a natural disaster.